The Gilded Cage
by Talia of Eragon
Summary: A mourning vampire is truly something horrific. What happens to Alucard after Integra dies?


_Disclaimer: I own no part of "Hellsing" or "Vampire Hunter D." I just like making the characters do my bidding._

_Author's Notes: This is an alternate universe points at the mention of VHD in disclaimer that is a mix between the Hellsing manga and the first anime. Dhampirs are possible (although ridiculously rare). I'm going with the (first) Hellsing anime rules for making vampires (where the "virgin" rule appears to not be in effect and the transformation appears to start by either a mixing of blood or ingestion of vampire blood. Related stories include: "Breaking Point," "Dhampir," and "Ties that Bind." All but "Breaking Point" can be found on and at theprophettalia. (along with illustraitions!), everything is on and special thanks to my beta reader, Liz, for doing a bang up job on this story! _

_Thank you for reading!_

**The Gilded Cage**

How long have I been here?

Minutes…hours…days…weeks…years…

Anymore, it all melts together into the indiscernible chaos that defines my consciousness. The amount of time it has taken me to form this thought—a few seconds, or a century? Such is the fate of a monster like me who has been afflicted with immortality.

Things weren't always like this…I wasn't always detached from the world around me. At one time I actively participated in it—and enjoyed it.

But that ended a long, long time ago.

What does eternity really entail? What is immortality?

It is everlasting futility.

What is existence really worth without some purpose for living? What importance does life hold without the confounding problem of it being so easily snatched away? The answer is that there is no worth; there is no importance. To me, life has become meaningless.

I have stayed in this building for so long. Some would say I am a prisoner. There are, indeed, wards using old magic to hold me here—but I could break them if I truly wanted to.

But what is the point? There is nothing outside here that interests me. There is nothing beyond these walls that I yearn for or fear. There is no sense in my leaving. I have grown far too powerful. There is nothing—no one—who can destroy me. There was only one adversary that held worth to me, and she died thousands of years ago.

Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing. My Integra. My master. My Mate.

She was no more than a mere human—but had power over me that no other human or monster could hope to match. To this day I can't explain what held me to her. The wards of the Hellsing family certainly weren't to blame. Of course. I only allowed her to believe that her control over me was absolute. In all honesty, she controlled me because I _wanted_ her to.

Integra was the most beautiful creature I had ever laid my eyes upon. Although she _was_ an attractive woman beneath her men's suits and cigars, it was my Master's psychological strength alone that made her a masterpiece. Despite being human she had a presence that could still and army, held ore commanding authority than any man I'd ever met, and had an indescribable power to intimidate those around her, despite being female.

She was magnificent. I was proud to be her servant.

I could see that quality in her the moment I witnessed her running into the dungeon of this complex as a young girl. Even then I had wanted her—to change her, so that she would always be by my side. But I could not force such an indomitable spirit. I wanted her to come to me willingly; to ask for it…to order me to do it.

It, of course, never happened.

I tried, constantly. I exhausted every trick in the book to persuade her to come to me. The battle of wills between us had always been the most rewarding part of our relationship, but in the end it was always a draw. Integra was too strong in her resolve to not become an undead, and I in my refusal to take her by force.

Even at the end, she would not yield.

My Iron Maiden.

Sir Hellsing was not cut down honorably in battle, nor did she pass peacefully in her sleep as an old woman. Integra died a dog's death during the first major bombing of World War III. Overtaken by internal bleeding from the glass and metal debris impaling her body, even as she lay dying before me, she refused to concede.

"You will never be my master, Alucard," she had said to me as I had pleaded with her to take my blood.

Her master… The worlds had cut me deep. To this day I still wonder if that was all she assumed I wanted—to break the binds of Hellsing and take revenge on my captors by enslaving their last descendant. The mere thought tormented me.

I had cried. Dark blood tears—the tears of a vampire. She wiped at them with the little strength she had, and reminded me that monsters didn't cry. I recall another who had said that to me in a similar circumstance.

_Monsters don't cry. You became a monster so you wouldn't have to, right?_

A being devoid of emotion…if only such a thing actually existed. I once tried to pretend that I did not possess human feelings. I was a ruthless, bloodthirsty killer. A demon of hell. A vampire. I couldn't possibly feel anything as petty as love or sadness.

However, I was a man once—and it was foolishness to pretend that traits found in the living did not follow me when I changed into what I am now. If anything, my emotions were intensified—my anger, my amusement…my grief…

"Your orders, my Master?" I had asked, surrendering to the fact that I was about to lose her forever.

"The same as always, my pet," her voice was a ragged whisper. "Search and destroy."

And then she died.

What do humans go through when a loved one is stolen away prematurely? It has been so long since I was mortal that I do not remember. Is there rage? Despair? Fear? The need for revenge? The desire to destroy everything around you? Perhaps this is what humans feel…

But _humans_ don't have the power to act out their aggressions.

A mourning vampire is truly something horrific.

Rage consumed me. All I knew then was _someone_ needed to pay for stealing Integra. I didn't care whom. That's the funny and terrible thing about my kind, we can only solve problems with bloodshed. I easily broke the Hellsing wards that were thought to have been controlling me, and I laid waste to Europe and western Asia. I destroyed everything—the land, the people, the enemies and the allies; I didn't care who got in my way.

That is the dangerous thing about taking away someone's reason to live. I had lost my purpose for exiting, and unfortunately for humanity, my reason for being one of the "good guys." All I could do was spread my own misery; demolish everything; bring the world to its knees; make it pay. I can't say that I'm proud of what I did. To be honest, I don't remember much of it at all. I was lost in my pain, and my most basic instincts had taken over.

I don't know how long it took for my bloodlust to dissipate. It could have been a week, a month. It could have been a year. I don't know. All I know is that I left a path of ruin in my wake as terrible as any man-made weapon could hope to achieve. When my mind finally returned to me, I holed myself up in the mountains of my native country. I was numb to everything. I hid in the back of a cave, isolated from all living things. I tried to gather my sanity, but all I could hear, see, or smell was _her_.

I waited for some reason to move; I longed for death, but unlike the trash vampires of the time, I was the closest thing to a true immortal. I was incapable of killing myself, and I'm sure no one else could have either. So, I became as close to dead as I could. I became almost comatose, trying to ride out my sorrow.

And then the dhampir came.

Integra's child—my own living, breathing son.

He was still a boy then; still aging as a human, around 15, maybe 16. he hadn't reached his full height, but was still very tall, his limbs long and lank. He was clothed in full battle regalia, just like Integra would wear out into the field. He was awkward and unsure of himself, but I couldn't read it on his features. He was armed with his mother's sword and my Casull, presumably loaded with exploding rounds of blessed sliver bullets.

The gun looked like a cannon on the boy's hip—not surprising considering the differences between our statures back then. He bravely strode toward me. I was sprawled at the back of the cave, resting in a sitting position with my back against the rocky wall. His dark brown hair was cut at a medium length, the way I had mine normally appear at that time, an it obscured his features. I could feel the fear rolling off of him, but he did not show it in his mannerisms.

So much like my Integra.

I glared at him, and he stared coolly back.

"I'm taking you back home," the boy spoke clearly. "You are out of control."

"And just how do you expect to bring me back under control, boy?" I asked.

I rarely used his name, even though I was the one how had chosen it. Now, sometimes I find it difficult to remember it at all. He stopped calling himself by it shortly after that time. Is it terrible that I cannot recall my own son's name? Sometimes I wonder if _he_ remembers it. To this day he will only go by "D…"

"D" for dhampir. "D" for Dracula. "D" for damned. Perhaps he looks at all of those as part of his alias. But _I_ know its first and foremost significance: "D" for Damien.

Damien Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing.

Without saying a word, he pulled my Casull from the holster and leveled it at me. It had been odd being on the receiving end of the enormous gun—especially when it was being held by such a young, although somber, boy. He cocked the gun before bringing his right index finger to his teeth. He bit into the pad and, using the stream of blood, began drawing the insignia I had become so accustomed to on the back of the hand holding my gun.

He was trying to rework my broken wards.

I stirred at my position at the back of the cave.

"Don't move," he snapped at me as he finished the primitive drawing: a five pointed star inscribed inside a circle. I was mildly surprised by the command in his voice. He had always been a very quite child growing up. It was odd to actually hear him speak, and with authority no less.

"Don't be a fool, boy. I don't want to be forced to hurt _you_ of all people."

"Do not move," he ordered again. I ignored the command, and he unceremoniously pulled the trigger. The explosive round ripped through my stomach, but did little harm.

Placing the first tow fingers of his right hand in the middle of the insignia on his left, he began to spout the incantations that would bring the wards and spiritual restraints back on my body.

I lunged at him, a second bullet tearing through my chest before I pinned him to the floor of the cave, my fingers wrapped around his pale throat.

"Little fool," I growled as I tightened my grip.

I felt his fear radiating from him, but he would not show it. His face remained cold even as my nails dug into his pale throat.

But then—it was as if he transformed before me. His blue eyes hardened to an icy glare, and a severe voice, more commanding than I'd ever heard come from him, issued from his lips.

"This is an _order_, Alucard. Stand down."

I could see her.

I could see her in his face. I could hear her in his voice.

What was I doing? How could I even think of harming him?

I released him and touched his face. Her name came from my lips and I backed away from him. I bowed down on one knee before him, as I had to Integra on the night she woke me from my dead sleep in the dungeon of the Hellsing compound.

I would never call him master. I would never follow his orders. But I _would_ return quietly with him. What was the point in fighting it anyway? What difference did it make if I was a prisoner or free to do as I pleased? My only reason to go on was dead. There would never be another like her. Why put myself through the torment of trying to live in the outside world without her?

He finished casting the wards and brought me back to the remnants of England. He bound me to the ruins of the Hellsing Compound so that I could not freely move outside of its boarders.

I allowed it. I wanted the isolation. Let the world crumble and destroy itself without me. I had no use for it. With the power allowed to me in my prison, I restored the Hellsing compound to what it was before the bombings.

I have been here ever since. I stay in her office, around her belongings. I hold her cross broach in my gloved hands. It is a constant sting, but I've grown accustomed to it.

I rarely move. I never feed. There is no need. I live mostly in my mind, with my memories of her—playing our mind games on the constant reel of my subconscious.

My son returns every few decades to strengthen my wards—as if I would actually leave if they weren't in place. I have no desire to leave my solitude. I have no desire to frustrate myself in a world that can't give me what I want. I am a stubborn, aggressive, and regrettably childish creature. If I were to even _try_ to exist out there, I would probably destroy everything in my disgust for the lack of meaning.

I will remain here, in my re-created fortress, locked in an era that passed thousands of years ago. Let time ebb and flow around me. Let the minutes, days and years melt together so that I have no concept of time. Leave the world and its humans, monsters and dogs to my son.

Let _him_ deal with them.

I will stay here: alone, in my gilded cage.

_Secondary Disclaimer: "Monsters don't cry. You became a monster so you wouldn't have to, right?" Hellsing chapter 73, page 3._

_Author's Notes: Just in case, to clear up any confusion, the part where Alucard was attacking D/Damien did not contain any sort of supernatural occurrence. I have had someone think that Integra's spirit took over D/Damien's body. That didn't happen. D/Damien was just tapping into the commanding part of his personality that he inherited from Integra. He called Alucard by name (rather than "Father" or no title at all) as a bit of a psychological punch, basically mimicking the phrasing his mother would have used to throw Alucard off balance and gain the upper hand. (Hmmm...D playing dirty, who would have thought?)_


End file.
